I had been tempted several times, almost, to resume this blog. During my internship in the winter vacation, which consisted of mainly sitting and fighting against drowsiness, I began to draft an article, in English, about the incidents that had compelled me to write them down. I had no problem in producing word after word, but they were going no where. An idea which I could express in a few Chinese characters would took me hundreds of English words, and still would, I assumed, I still believe at this moment, confuse many who were kind enough to read them.
          I gave up.

Today in the library, I happened upon a book on Henry James that finally deprived me of any excuse to shun the writing of this piece.

'The Line of Beauty' is a book, among many others, I collected last summer in a book exhibition. The current books (in opposition to 'classic' ones) that used to be exorbitant for my purse were on that occasion, exhilarating to me as you can imagine, many of them half-off. I was almost going through them one by one. The decoration of 'The Line of Beauty' didn't strike me as a 'Must-Have'. I began to read the blurb, revealing the hero to be a homosexual, which fact was not so inviting to me as well. But when I came across the phrase 'set in Notting Hill', I knew I would not abandon it, simply for my fondness for that film, or rather, for Hugh Grant.
          I finished the book deep into a midnight in the first week of the following semester, with the assistance of half a dozen cigarettes, with which I newly acquainted myself.
          The author of this book, Alan Hollingurst, is a Jamesian, a label for those who admire Henry James, 'the Master', and surely, write in a way very similar to James's. I prefer not to elaborate on my adoration for the elegance of this book, to which my English will never do justice. I soon found out that this book was made into a BBC TV mini-series (3 episodes), and after passing the first phase of not believing I would ever be so lucky to see it, I set out to search it on the Internet. After several sleepless nights of my computer, (viva BT!), I was in the face of stunning style of the hero, Nick Guest, played by Dan Stevens, who, after several minutes' of looking at him, I know for sure would become such an actor that I don't want to miss any of the work of his from that moment on. Nick, in the novel, as in the series of course, is a post-graduate who studies Henry James; he, being gay himself, is working on a PH.D., and the subject is the hidden sexuality in Henry James’s works.
          The viewing of that series roughly, but also amazingly, coincided with the teaching of 'The Tree of Knowledge', by Henry James, in our writing class. In short (James’s invariable prelude to a baffling long sentence), I could find something more each time I read that story, and each time my admiration for James’s style became deeper-rooted.
          Two or three months later, I discovered a FTP established by the students of our university, and was browsing through it. ‘Sense & Sensibility’. BBC. Mini-TV-Series. Of course I downloaded them. How I was astonished, in a delightful way, when I realized that Edward Ferrars here is played by Dan Stevens. And before long I recalled that in the 'Sense & Sensibility' which is directed by Ang Lee, Edward Ferrars was played by Hugh Grant – two my favourite actors played the same role!
         And there was more to this coincidence: both Dan Stevens and Hugh Grant majored in English or English Literature (one in Cambridge and one in Oxford though). And I am doing it here in SJTU, by the way.
         It all started when I decided to buy that book, which I can responsibly say was a result of my love for Hugh Grant. If it is not a miracle, at least it is miraculous that it could come around back to him.

Last semester I spent a lot of time in the library trying to make sense of Henry James’s enigmatic sentences; prior to that my favourite writers are Oscar Wilde, Somerset Maugham, and Jane Austen. I was always amazed by the fact that of all the writers in the history of human wisdom, the only two men in my top 3 are homosexual; then I can’t help but wondering how come I was not even a bit into boys.
          My appreciation of Henry James cannot grow without fomenting the question: is this gentleman earnest too? (‘Earnest’ in Victorian age had the undertone of homosexuality, so you can measure the naughtiness of Oscar Wilde in writing the play ‘The Importance of being Earnest’.) But I somehow didn’t undertake any research.
          This morning, after the classes, having made up my mind to skip the French classes, I was all by myself in the library. As usual my eyes wandered. One book caught my attention, ‘Henry James’s permanent adolescence’. I instantly sensed that something’s happening. ‘Chapter 2: defining Henry James’s homosexuality’… In which I without any difficulty located paragraphs as follows:
         At the turn of the century James fell in love with a series of young men and achieved with them a certain level of homosexual contentment. He also, in the narcissistic pattern, used their company to compensate for his lost youth.
         After all, Henry is gay as well. Philosophically speaking, do I love them because they are gay or did they become gay so that I will love them? If the most important question isn’t why my favourite authors all share homosexuality, it must be: where is mine?